Overview

• Investigations are ongoing into a Gelnhausen case in which eight girls aged 11 to 16 were allegedly groped by four Syrian men at an outdoor pool.
• In Darmstadt a 55-year-old man was released pending trial after police seized his smartphone as evidence in an attempt to photograph a 19-year-old woman in a changing room.
• The Landeskriminalamt North Rhine-Westphalia recorded nearly 300 sexual crimes in swimming facilities in 2024, marking an 11 percent increase over the previous year and reporting that over half of the 247 suspects lacked German citizenship.
• The Bundeskriminalamt’s new registry logged 423 pool-related sexual offences nationwide last year with an 80 percent clearance rate and two-thirds of suspects identified as non-German.
• Operators and industry associations warn that budget cuts after the pandemic and energy crisis have reduced lifeguard and security staffing while police urge immediate reporting of any suspicious behaviour